


someone to talk about

by Idestroyedtheworldoops



Series: the kanagawa twins [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Gen, M/M, Spoilers up to Promised Land Part 3, T rating for off-screen sex (NOT between Cecil and Cass) and lots of cussing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-07 18:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14086728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idestroyedtheworldoops/pseuds/Idestroyedtheworldoops
Summary: Cassandra expected the night to go about how most of her nights went these days- get lost in some nameless club on the other side of the galaxy, maybe pick up a girl, maybe end up blacked out somewhere. But it turns out even if you cross an entire galaxy to do it, you can never really forget your past. And you certainly can't forget your family.





	someone to talk about

Cass was just trying to get drunk.

She was in a seedy club on a seedier planet somewhere in the scutum-centaurus arm, about as far away as you could get from Mars. No windows, black walls, neon lights- the classic setting for getting blackout drunk and forgetting about your shitty, shitty life for a minute.

It wasn't fair that the lilting, pitchy, _insufferable_ sound of her brother's laugh was making forgetting about anything pretty impossible.

 _Goddamnit_ , she had been sure there weren't any monitors in there. When she whipped around in the direction of the noise she still didn't see any- it didn't look like there were any sources of light except for the neon strobes that rolled over the crowds. But there it was again, closer to the bar.

 _Did someone make it their fucking ringtone?_ she thought. She heard it again, and she’d had it. She considered picking out whoever was making the noise through the thick crowds, but if whoever it was was a Kanagawa fan, she couldn't risk them recognizing her face. She trudged off in the opposite direction and groaned as half of her drink sloshed out of it’s glass.

It was a big club; she figured she could avoid them. Or maybe they could pick up their fucking comms soon.

She was wrong on both marks, though, because wherever she went in the godforsaken club she could still _hear it_ , and she was just frustrated and just drunk enough to start throwing punches at the next person who so much as pulled out a comms, but-

It was changing, different enough every time that it was getting harder by the second to assume it was just a recording, and she _didn't hallucinate, goddamnit,_ so-

_So-_

She broke through the crowd on the other side of the room, and her stomach dropped.

So...

She wasn't sure, for a second. The figure she thought must be Cecil had his face blocked from her angle by the back of another man's head, so all she could see was the other man's candy pink pony tail and Cecil’s (real) fingers tangled up in the base of it. They were really going at it, it looked like, Cecil up against the wall and the other man’s hand up the front of his shirt, but at that moment she didn't even have the cognitive space to be grossed out by seeing her brother like that.

Seemed like there was someone to do her job for her, because a woman standing near enough that she was probably with them elbowed the other guy in his side and said something about _getting a room_ that carried over to where Cass was standing. He pulled away to shove her back, halfheartedly, and she heard Cecil's laugh peel across the room again as she finally saw his face.

It was still too much of a mirror of hers, even covered with his smearing makeup and the club’s neon blur. His laughter dropped an octave as the man pinned his other arm down and went back to kissing him, and she could see the cybernetic's rose gold glint in the neon lights.

The woman rolled her eyes and went back to nursing her pitch-black drink.

It was him. Really him.

She was torn between wanting to storm over and punch his teeth in and knowing she should run out the door and not stop long enough to look back, but she was too frozen with dread to do either. She was sure he was gonna see her, must have seen her while his face was exposed, she was standing _ten feet_ in front of him, but moments dragged into minutes and nothing happened. Lucky for her, it looked like at the moment he only had eyes for the man who had him pinned up against the wall.

Tearing her eyes away from Cecil and his date, she accidentally met the gaze of their lady friend.

She was staring right at her.

Cass started shoving her way towards the door.

She'd probably looked like some kind of creeper, watching the two of them make out. ( _Gross_.) That might have been the reason the woman's eyes were on her, she tried to reason, but she wasn't even fooling herself. It wasn't that surprising he'd managed to find her. She hadn't been the _most_ careful person in the world while she'd been on the run, especially as the months had dragged on. She could only hope he was here alone, that he'd been confident enough in his ability to take her solo that he thought he had the time to blow off some steam.

Cass made it all the way to the exit hall before she heard her name called from far too close behind her.

She froze. The voice wasn't her brother's, but Cass didn't use her real name anymore, and that told her enough.

She could keep running, but foot chases weren't her strong suit. If the person had kept up with her all the way through the packed club, it'd be better to slow them down a little before she tried to escape in earnest.

She turned to face the newcomer, fists clenched, and saw the woman who'd been with Cecil standing poised and relaxed less than four feet in front of her. How had she gotten so close so fast? Cass hadn't even heard her come in.

Cass didn't think before she threw a punch to the gut, and she groaned in pain as her fist made contact with something cold and hard. The woman was petite and not particularly muscular, but punching her felt like punching a brick wall.

The woman caught her fist, and Cass didn't know if it was in her pale blue glove or her hand itself, but there was something blatantly inorganic about the stuff that had her knuckles secured painfully in it's grip. Not metal, she knew what that felt like, but definitely not flesh, either.

"Cecil bio-engineer himself another bodyguard?" she asked through gritted teeth.

The woman let out a trill of a laugh that could give Cecil's a run for it's money on a scale of pure irritation.

"Nothing of the sort, dear," she said, her hand still clenched around Cass's fist, "I did this to myself! You'd be shocked just what they let you do to yourself out here, without all those silly _government regulations_ they have across the rest of the galaxy. I suppose that's why we're both here, hm?" She raised a powder-blue eyebrow. "No government to do the regulating, around these parts."

Cassandra clenched her still-free fist, and had to try really hard not to give herself another set of bruised knuckles on the woman's modded skin. "I'm not letting you take me back there."

The woman tilted her head. "Back where, dear?"

"Cut the shit," Cass growled, "I know you work for Cecil!"

"Work for him?" She raised both her eyebrows and giggled. "Oh, no, you misunderstand. See, that was _my_ brother with his tongue down your brother's throat, back there."

"Yuck," she said on reflex.

The woman sighed emphatically. "I _know_. I mean, I'm happy for them, but it gets be a little much after while! Cecil's my friend too and Edward's the most important person in my life but it's harder to enjoy spending time with them when they're both so caught up in enjoying each _other_ -"

"Shut _up!"_ Cass said, after a few seconds of listening incredulously. She tried to yank her fist out of the other woman's hand again, to no success.

" _Well_." The other woman splayed her free hand across her chest, looking offended.

"If you're going to drag me to Cecil you could get it the hell over with," Cass said, yanking her fist again for emphasis.

"I'm not going to drag you anywhere, dear," she replied, drawing her lips into a pout. "I only wondered why you would leave without saying hello after coming all this way."

Cassandra glared at her innocent-looking expression. Cecil's supposed friend stared at her with bright yellow eyes and blown out pupils, like a cat who liked what she saw for the moment but would slit her pupils and shred something to slivers the second she got a little bored. The kind of company her brother would keep, for sure, pretty and dangerous and lacking in the moral department, but in a lot of ways running into a friend was worse than running into an employee. Cass ran over her words again and made a disgusted noise. "Coming all this... I didn't track him here, he tracked me! Don't act like you didn't know, you know my name, you knew who I was!"

The woman frowned. "I doubt that, darling.”

“The innocent act would be a lot more convincing if you didn’t still have my hand in a death grip,” Cass growled.

“But it isn’t an act!” she continued, still making no moves to let go of her hand. “We chose this place, not Cecil. And as for how I knew you, well, I'm very familiar with Cecil's face at this point, and..." She shrugged and gestured to Cass's face with her free hand, "You have it."

"Bullshit," Cass said, "I'm not letting you trick me into letting my guard down. I'm _not_ going back to Hoosegow-"

The woman let out a high-pitched peel of laughter that made Cass flinch.

"Of course, _no one's_ going back to Hoosegow, dear," she said, still laughing.

Cass squinted at her for a few moments before the woman seemed to realize she wasn't kidding. Her demeanor shifted from amused to pitying, which made Cass seriously consider risking a punch at her almost-certainly modded face.

"Oh, you can't _possibly_ not have heard," she said.

"I make a point to turn off the streams the second I hear the name 'Kanagawa'," she deadpanned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The woman widened her eyes and pressed her blue glove to her chest.

"The Kanagawas got _got_ , Cassandra."

Cass blinked, then glared. "What?"

The woman looked at her indulgently. "Went under, got hit with the books, were charged legally with crimes-"

"I know what it means!" she interrupted, "That's impossible. My family's got every cop and politician in Hyperion City shoved up its collective ass."

The woman laughed. "I'm sure they did. But there was an election, you see, and I'm afraid the new Mayor refuses to be shoved anywhere."

"Pereyra wouldn't lose," Cass said skeptically.

"Pereyra's dead," she replied, "And as I hear it this O'Flaherty is a real buzzkill. Such a drag about the little things, genetic experimentation, murder, torture," she _giggled._

"O'Flaherty's government claimed the liability agreements they'd collected from most of their contestants over the years had been the results of coercion, extortion or outright _trickery_ instead of genuine agreement on the part of the signer. _Ridiculous_ , I know,” she smiled, then quickly went back to looking pensive.

“It wasn't _too_ bad- most of the family got away, but there was a civil asset forfeiture," she continued. "The government seized everything that had to do with their recording operation, which was, well, _everything_. Cecil says he wouldn't have gotten off-planet with his arm if it wasn't surgically attached to his body, and that still wasn't for a lack of trying on their part."

Cassandra stared at her face.

"So, what?" she asked flatly, "They're broke now?"

The woman tapped her lips with a free finger. "Not _entirely_. That's what off-world assets are for, of course, but they've certainly been knocked off their feet. I honestly don't know how long it'll take for them to stand back up again, if they ever will. I don't think they ever really expected to get thrown under, at least not this thoroughly, if the sparsity of their off-world accounts are any judge. They put almost everything into Mars, and Cecil's put most of what's left into keeping the bulk of the family afloat."

The woman's thoughtful expression turned into a grin. "Of course, we called him, Edward and I, as soon as we heard. We've been fans of each others work for a while, you see, and we were just _devastated_ to hear what had happened. We've been cheering him up these last few months, y'know," her grin widened, "Showing him what the fringes of society have to offer."

Cassandra stared into her glowy yellow eyes with a blank look on her face. "You're saying this happened months ago."

The woman sighed. "I really can't believe you hadn't heard, Cassandra. And the fact that we all ended up here seemingly by chance..." she shook her head. "Sounds like fate to me."

She finally let go of Cass's hand, and Cass took a few steps out of range.

"I understand this is probably a lot to take in." She swept her curtain of powder-blue hair over her shoulder and gave Cass a winning smile. Cass didn't doubt that smile could bring most people to their knees, but growing up in the Kanagawa house had taught her be ten times more suspicious of a grin than of a glare. "I meant it when I said I didn't follow you out here to drag you along with us, but if you were at all interested, I'd love to have someone to hang out with while Edward and Cecil were busy, and I know your brother would just _love_ to see you."

Cassandra was taken aback for a moment.

Then she glared murder at her.

"I'm sure he would," she spat, before turning towards the exit.

"We're staying upstairs if you change your mind," the woman called after her in a tone that reminded her just a little too much of her stepmother, "Suite J-512!"

Cass's mind was half numb and half racing as the doors to the club slid shut behind her. She needed to get to a computer. She needed to fact check the things that Cecil's friend had told her. If she had been lying, it was to lull her into a false sense of security, and she needed to get off this planet as fast as possible. The smart thing would be to just do that anyways, but no, she had to know. If she wasn't lying-

Cass didn't know what she was gonna do if she wasn't lying.

 

***

 

She got as far as 'Kanag-' before the suggested autofills answered her question for her, but she still finished the search.

The simple search 'Kanagawa' got her a page full of articles from tabloids and legitimate news sites alike-

**Kanagawa Streams Shut Down!**

**Kanagawa Mansion and Other Properties Seized By City Government**

**Fortezza and Hoosegow Demolished Alongside 36 More Privately-Run HC Prisons**

Cass continued scrolling, until a title finally made her freeze.

**Min Kanagawa Denied Bail As Heated Arraignment Concludes**

She stared at those words for what felt like hours before she finally tapped the link.

Kanagawa Corporation CEO and alleged crime boss Min Kanagawa has been officially charged and arrested after months of house arrest and intense legal battles.

The unconventional length of time it has taken to reach this point was used as evidence against Mrs. Kanagawa toward her lingering illegal influence on government proceedings, and has contributed to her being declared both a flight risk and a potential public danger in the final ruling of her arraignment. Mrs. Kanagawa is being held with top priority in a freshly built maximum security complex until her trial, which has been set for September 29th...-

Cass continued to skim the article numbly.

Min was in prison. She had been for weeks. She'd been trapped in Hyperion City for even longer. And the rest of her family had been chased out of it.

While Cass had been out here, shaking in her damn boots, running and hiding, hopping from planet to planet like some sick perversion of her dream all because she was terrified of her family dragging her back to prison, some puffed-up self-righteous Northstar exec playing politician had run them all right into the ground. She couldn't tell whether she felt relieved or pissed or scared. She thought she probably had a right to be all three.

For one, her literal fucking evil stepmother was behind bars, which Cass had never dared to hope might actually happen. And Hoosegow had been torn down, so even if someone managed to get her back in jail it would be _jail_ , and not _that._

On the other hand, all of her family's money was gone, so if she'd had any hope left of getting home someday and making her _art_ , that was gone, too. And... as much as she had dreamed of leaving them all behind, she didn't hate her family. Not all of them, at least. It wasn't that simple, and she was livid at the fact they'd been ruined like this, even if on a different level she knew they deserved worse.

Which brought her back to... Cecil. Right down the goddamn street from her, if his friend was to be believed. Hell, even if she wasn't, Cass'd seen him in the building and she knew Cecil never left a party this early in the night. He preferred to let them run well into the next day, and the next night, and the day after that, and on and on until he wound up in either a hospital or a holding cell.

He was right there, and there was nothing he could do to her, no legal or financial superiority to hang over her head, nowhere to even take her back to. No one to tell him he was supposed to take her anywhere.

Cecil was a lot of things: A cheat, a snake, a killer. Her twin. Their parents' favorite, whether you were talking about dad or Min or even their real mom. _Her_ favorite, out of all her crazy half-siblings and cousins and every other distantly related nut she grew up in the same house with. Not that there was a glowing selection to choose from.

Of all her blood relatives he was the one she was closest with, and she could go talk to him, no strings attached. Did she owe him that?

No, she didn't owe him anything. Not after Hoosegow, not after everything that'd happened in there that he must have been at least complicit in. If he'd objected to any of it (why did she still think he might’ve?) it hadn't been enough.

Did she owe _herself_ that? What would she think years from now if she bolted without so much as looking him in the eye? Cecil was off the grid as much as she was; according to those articles, the Hyperion City government was still actively searching for him, even if he'd managed to slip through their fingers. If she didn't talk to him now, it was more than likely she'd never see him again.

She squared her jaw and shoved her hand into her breast pocket. Carefully wrapped, where she always kept it, was a professional-grade stun knife. She usually preferred guns when she had to resort to weapons, but this was much easier to conceal, and to get through customs.

She preferred her fists overall if and when things came to a fight, but in this galaxy you could never be too careful. Especially around family.

 

***

 

Cassandra was almost up the stairs of the shady club-slash-shady inn when she heard the screaming. She grimaced as she continued walking- the lawlessness of this part of the galaxy allowed a lot of freedom, but it also meant there was no one to intervene when things got a little too messy. At least, not unless a conveniently armed, benevolent stranger happened to come by. She started weighing the pros and cons of following the noise and trying to help as she emerged onto the second floor. It took her another few steps to recognize the voice.

She froze in place for a second, listening carefully, and clenched her fists. It was a scream she'd heard everywhere from stream specials to through her own bedroom walls.

She traced the noise to a door, and she'd already banged on it a few times before she bothered to look at the number- _J-512_. 

"Come the fuck out here before I break this door!" she yelled, and she was half-surprised at the fury in her voice. She'd come over here with half a mind to give Cecil a piece of hers, but if he was in real trouble- goddamnit.

The screaming stopped, but the door remained locked and closed. She could almost make out the words of someone's muffled whisper through the door.

"I'm not fucking around!" she said, banging on it again for emphasis.

A moment later, the electric lock _bing_ ed. The door slid open, and she was faced with a very annoyed and slightly disheveled looking man. At least, he looked annoyed until he got a good look at her face; then his went slack with shock, glancing behind himself and then back at her.

It was the guy she'd seen kissing Cecil back on the dance floor. She _knew_ she'd gotten a bad vibe from that lady. The man opened his mouth to say something, but it was lost as she grabbed his ruffled shirt collar and picked him up off the ground.

"You're going to take me to Cecil," she said, "And if you've done _anything_ to him, I'm-"

" _Cassandra?_ "

She started, and looked toward the voice without putting the man down. A door inside the suite had opened, and in the doorway stood her brother.

He crossed the room toward them, and a quick once over didn't show her any obvious injuries. His posture and expression didn’t reveal anything either- he looked pretty comfortable, actually, but Cecil could look comfortable while being kidnapped by gangsters threatening to kill him slowly, so that wasn’t the best way to gauge the situation. As he got closer she noticed he had something shiny all over his face... this guy's pink lip gloss, it looked like, going down his neck and all the way below his shirt collar. _Oh._ The shirt, along with the rest of his clothes, were rumpled as if they'd been hastily put back on, and oh, _god_.

She dropped the guy and he caught himself on the door frame, but not before he yelped like a kicked puppy. He took a couple of slow steps until he was standing just between beside and behind Cecil.

"Um, C?" He said nervously, placing a hand on the small of her brother's back, "I think it's for you."

"You were screaming like you were being murdered in here," she said through gritted teeth, glaring at him.

Cecil sighed- _dreamily_ , the goddamn nerve.

" _Yeah_..." he said in the same airy tone. He glanced at the other man, who blushed pink and wrapped his arm the rest of the way around Cecil's waist.

" _Fuck you_ ," she said, fisting her hand in her own hair.

"Yeah!" her brother agreed, cheerfully. He started giggling. She punched him in the ribs.

"Cecil!" the other guy- Edward, she thought his sister might have called him- held Cecil up as he doubled over. He started to move between them before Cecil waved him off. It was only a moment before his strained coughs turned into laughing, and he shook his head.

"I hate your guts, you know that?" she said, still glaring at him as he righted himself, "I can't believe I was almost worried about you."

"Aw, Cass, you do care," he said, splaying a hand over his chest. She clenched her fists again, but he just laughed.

"If I'd known you'd _be_ here, Cassandra, you might have found me in a less compromising position," he continued.

"I ran into your other friend earlier," Cassandra said, "She didn't tell you?"

"Lyd went back to a different room tonight. Met a very nice girl on the dance floor, as far as I saw," Cecil said thoughtfully, "She did _not_ say anything about running into you."

"Well she _did,_ " Cass said sourly, holding up her hand, "I've got the bruise to show for it."

Cecil raised his eyebrows. "She hit you?"

"I hit her."

Edward inhaled through his teeth and shook his head in mock sympathy. "Bad call."

She took a step toward him. "You made of the same stuff, tough guy?"

He took a step back away from her, laughing nervously.

"I happen to know where dear Lydia is at the moment," he said, adjusting his still-mussed shirt collar, "I think I'm going to go inquire to her about this little miscommunication."

"You sure? She's probably _busy_ ," Cecil said, emphasizing _busy_ in the way that made sure it was clear he meant _getting laid_.

"If we can handle the interruption so can she," he replied, almost moving away from Cecil before glancing between him and Cassandra.

"As long you're going to be alright here?" he asked softly.

Cassandra rolled her eyes hard.

"Absolutely," Cecil replied.

Edward left one last bright pink kiss mark in the middle of Cecil's cheek before skirting carefully around Cassandra and out of the room.

The door shut behind him, and Cassandra and Cecil were alone.

It was about three seconds after this that he threw his arms around her.

"Cassandra!" he squealed, tightening his hug with bionic-enhanced strength.

She was frozen for a moment, a long-buried part of her wanting to hug him back, before she came to her senses.

"Ugh, get off me, you _weirdo,_ " she said, shoving her elbow into his stomach, "You were literally _just_ having sex!"

He did get off her as he doubled over again, half-coughing and half-laughing.

"That's my sister," he said fondly.

"You got your boytoy's lip stuff on me," she said, rubbing furiously at the pink marks where Cecil's face had rested in the crook of her shoulder, "I'm gonna get you for this!"

"I look forward to it," he said genuinely.

She blinked.

There was something in his voice that made the anger fall out of her, replaced by the same scared indecision she'd felt when she was deciding whether to even come over there at all.

"Cassandra?" he asked with concern as her expression changed. He seemed sincerely happy to see her, and she should be angry or glad or _something_ about that, but she just felt kind of sick.

"How did you find me?" he asked, still delighted, if a little cautious.

She looked back at him.

"Luck," she said bitterly. There was a pause before she continued, "...I heard what happened."

Cecil's shoulders fell. Suddenly, he looked almost as tired as she felt.

"Ah." His voice was barely audible. "Yes. That."

A few things to say rolled through her head, each canned and cheesier than the last- _How're you holding up?_ etc. She finally settled on the one thing that hadn't really left the forefront of her mind in the hour or so since she learned it.

"They got Min," she said flatly. Just saying it out loud felt like a burden off.

Cecil's expression darkened- really _darkened_ , with anger instead of performative sadness, and in that moment she thought he looked far too much like herself.

She braced herself for the defenses, the oaths that he would free Min or at least avenge her, the proof that he would still take _her_ side even after everything.

Instead, she got a whisper, bitter, angry and sad.

" _I_ got Min."

Cassandra blinked.

Cecil looked at her, and then took a deep breath. "Things started getting bad for us pretty quickly after O’Flaherty became Mayor. He wasn't going to devote so many resources to capturing every single one of us, but he wasn’t going to stand for all of us up and running, either. You'd think he'd be all for it- it'd get us so called 'criminals' out of _'his'_ city, but this wasn't just about eliminating crime." He grit his teeth. "It was about proving a point. Making sure everyone in Hyperion City knew he was powerful enough to take down the high-lives, so what chance did the low-lives have?

“How would it look, then, if the biggest _'crime family'_ in Hyperion City got away fully intact?” he continued, “He needed someone to make an example of, and it wasn't going to be one of the little people, either. We knew he wasn't going to settle for less than a face. And with you gone, and Daddy-" his voice cracked a little. "Well. It was going to be Min or myself."

Cassandra stared at him, running over what he'd said in her mind, making sure she'd heard him right.

"So you screwed her over," she guessed. She was almost impressed, but more than that she was just floored.

For some unfathomable reason, Cecil had always genuinely loved every single person in their screwed-up family. That included Min- he'd embraced her marriage to their father with an open heart, not giving even a first thought to the rumors involving her in the suspicious circumstances of their real mother's disappearance. For someone who was a literal evil genius, he trusted way too easily.

His shoulders managed to fall even farther.

"No." He swallowed. "I was going to take the fall for her."

That sounded more like him. But… "Then, what happened?"

He let out a breath.

"Junebug happened, Cassandra," he said. He almost smiled.

"Juno?" she asked, taken aback.

He nodded, and suddenly he looked like he was about to cry. "He explained everything." He actually sniffled.

She looked on warily as something ejected out of his arm, but it turned out to be a handkerchief.

He was dabbing at yet to fall tears in his eyes when he said, his voice breaking again- "She- she killed our _parents_ , Cassandra!"

Cassandra took a step back. Of all the things she might have expected him to say, _that_ had not been one of them.

Memories flooded her, snapping bronze and oceans of blood. She stepped back into a dresser and snapped one of it’s fancy wooden drawer handles trying to ground herself, but Cecil was too busy crying into his fancy handkerchief to notice.

What had Juno told him? She could see Juno figuring out it might be better to have Min behind bars than Cecil, if he _had_ to choose. Using Cecil's silly sense of trust in him to convince him to throw Min to the dogs, and consequently putting Cass in the clear, as far as he was concerned. She could let him keep thinking that, turn and walk out the door and let it be done. But…

Why had she gone over there in the first place? To rough him up, to see him one last time… for closure. Whether it came in the form of fists or words or knives or worse.

" _I_ killed Dad, Cecil," she said, the words feeling like sand in her mouth even as she forced them out. "I don't know what he told you, but I _did_ it."

She expected him to be shocked, to be horrified, to _fight_ , finally. But he just looked sadder.

"Your _hands_ , maybe. But..." he dabbed his running eye makeup one more time, and got a look on his face that reminded her a lot of the one his friend had had before she spilled the beans about their family going broke. "Cassandra..."

She clenched her fists. "I'm pretty fucking sick of people standing there acting surprised when I don't know something they think I should. Spit it the hell out already."

"She set you up, Cassandra. That schedule-"

She flinched. The doting voices of medical professionals slash b-list stream stars rang in her ears, _There was no schedule, Cassandra, You were hallucinating, Cassandra, **You're never going to get better if you don't cooperate with us, Cassandra,**_ -

"There _was_ a schedule, Cassandra," Cecil said, like he was reading her mind. She blinked up at him, not because of what he'd said (she'd known that, she _knew it_ ), but because of how he'd said it. His voice was small and his eyes looked like glass someone'd taken a hammer to. She'd never seen him like this, not once. He looked... guilty.

"I'm sorry, Cassandra," he said, bringing that handkerchief back up to his face, "I'm so sorry."

He started weeping again. She didn't need to ask why. The memories of her months in Hoosegow kept trying to bubble there way up to the top of her thoughts, but she did her best to push them back. She didn't need to deal with that right now.

"What do you mean," she asked slowly, "She set me up?"

He sniffled, and finally met her eyes again. "Min had that schedule forged- you know how she could always do all of our signatures?- and left it on your set to bait you. Daddy was _going_ to give you your show, Cassandra. He told me he was, even. Min came to me later telling me he'd changed his mind, but I've done the math and at that point he was already- he-" He blew his nose.

"He chose your show, and Mother-" that dark anger crept back into his face. "Min couldn't stand the prospected financial nosedive. Maybe she didn't know you would _kill_ him, but- maybe she did! Either way she knew you'd do something that got Daddy out of commission and you behind bars. She didn't care about you," he sobbed like this was new information, "She didn't care about any of us! She was _using_ us," he sniffled again, and finally put the handkerchief away.

He collected himself for what she hoped was the final time. "So I used _her_. O'Flaherty got his example, and the heat laid off just enough that the rest of us could run."

Cassandra stayed silent for a minute after he’d finished speaking.

There was still a chance Juno had made all of this up. She hadn’t heard him say anything like this the night her father died. Or had she? She remembered one of the last things he'd said to her before she got dragged away: _You can't blame a puppet for moving when the strings are pulled._ Was that Juno's-Dumb-Noir-Schtick for _You got set up?_

Juno'd been the one to orchestrate her prison break, too. She thought it was just cause they were friends, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was because he knew she was innocent. She didn't remember his secretary telling her anything about it when she was leading her off Mars, either, but between the drugs, the mental exhaustion, and Rita's general demeanor, that wasn't a stretch. Rita’d said a _lot,_ in their brief time together, enough for her to get lost in, enough to distract her from the overwhelming feeling of actually getting away after so long, and Cass could have easily missed the explanation of one real murder in the midst of the many fictional ones she’d had explained to her in vivid detail.

It _made sense._ God, for the first time in months, almost _years_ now, something finally made sense.

“And mom?” Cass asked, after a long moment of silence. “They finally prove Min did it?”

Cecil blinked at her. For a second she was afraid he was gonna start crying again, but he kept it together.

“Was I the _only_ one who didn’t know?” he asked miserably.

Cass shook her head and shrugged. “I think you’re the only one who didn’t at least suspect.”

“Surely Daddy didn’t…” he choked, and she really didn’t want to see him crying for a reason she actually couldn’t be dismissive of.

“Speaking of everyone,” she said forcefully, referring to the rest of their family, “I’m surprised you’re out here with a couple of strangers, instead of with them.”

“They’re alright,” he said quickly, “I left them put up pretty comfortably in a system without any extradition treaties with the Solar. And Edward and Lydia aren’t _strangers_ ,” he said defensively, and she knew she’d succeeded changing the subject, “I’ve known them for a while now. We must have met right around the time you-” he cut off, suddenly contrite.

She ignored that. “And you’re sure you’re… safe? Out here? I mean, I talked to one of them for like two minutes and it kinda felt like she was trying to lure me to my death.”

Cecil laughed. “Oh, no, she’d _never_ do anything like that! To you!” He shook his head. “I’m sure she just wanted to end up signing you.”

Cass raised an eyebrow. “Signing me?”

“They own a stream network out here,” he said simply.

“ _Oooh_ ,” she said.  
  
“What?” Cecil said innocently.

After a beat, he gasped. “Are you accusing _me_? Of having _ulterior motives_? _Never_. They called me, after all.”

She stared at him for a while, and he sighed.

“I won’t say it wasn’t _convenient_ or _welcome_ ,” he said, “But I _do_ like them.” He adjusted his still-wrinkled top. “Quite a bit.”

She rolled her eyes. “People can hear just how much you _like them_ all the way from the stairs, by the way.”

He laughed that deeper laugh that she’d heard briefly back on the dancefloor. She groaned.

“It isn't only that, though. They _really_ know how to have a good time, and all three of us have a lot in common. Edward’s so sweet to me, too, and being with him has been…” He paused, taking on an expression more earnest than his double-edged excitement. “Really _great_ , actually. I haven’t gotten to just _date_ someone without having to spin it for the cameras in…”

The end of that sentence was _never_ and they both knew it, but he went ahead and tapped his purple-stained lips until he shrugged.

“Anywho, yes, I’m perfectly alright. Better than, really. They’ve already told me they want me on their network, and if Lydia thinks she’s conned me into it that’s delightful for her, but it’s really a mutually beneficial thing. I would have said yes if they’d just offered on the phone, but I’ll admit this has been a lot more fun.” He smiled.

“A couple months from now, I’ll be bringing in money for the family again, and I’ll _finally_ be back on the streams,” He placed his metal hand over his heart, “Honestly, as much fun as I’ve been having out here it’s been _killing_ me not immortalizing this face! I’ve been _dying_! It _belongs_ on the screen.”

He tried to swoon onto her, and she shoved him off hard enough that he landed on the floor.

He burst out laughing and hell, so did she.

She offered him a hand, and he took it. She was still laughing, but by the time he was upright again, he looked uncharacteristically sober.

“You know…” He didn’t meet her eyes. “You have this face, too.”

She frowned at him. “Yeah?”

He met her gaze. He looked nervous. “I mean, if you wanted to-”

She cut him off with a laugh, sharp and mocking.

“No thanks,” she said bitterly. “I’ve had my fill of working for sadistic entertainment execs for one lifetime.”

“But... what _else_ you going to do?” he asked her with big eyes.

What _was_ she going to do now? There was nothing to run from anymore, not really. The HCPD didn’t have authority anywhere near this far out into the galaxy, so without the threat of her family hanging over her head, she was free.

As free as you were when you were broke and friendless on the other side of nowhere.

She could keep wandering, get a job as someone’s hired muscle when her money ran out. She could try and save up enough for her production… but that would be a ludicrous amount of money to try and scrounge up on her own.

That _didn’t_ mean she was gonna tie herself to another bloodthirsty stream network, though. After all of this, she wasn’t gonna end up exactly like she’d started, trapped with a bunch of cons who'd milk her dry and never even give her what she wanted.

Maybe it had been a pipe dream to begin with. Maybe she could settle for just seeing the whole galaxy, instead of getting to share it with an audience. She had the freedom to just enjoy the planets she passed through, now, instead of rushing through them in fear of being recognized. Maybe that would be enough.

Maybe.

“Listen…” she looked into her brother’s hopeful eyes. “I came up here to say goodbye.”

He gasped. “No!” His shoulders fell. “Not forever, right?”

She sighed. “Yes, Cecil, forever. We’re both in hiding, and it’s not like we’re gonna run into each other like this again-”

“But there’s nothing to hide from all the way out here,” he begged, “Please, you could come with us! I know they seem like a lot but they’re really delightful once you get to know them and I _miss_ you,” He rushed, looking at her with big shining eyes and an expression she’d never managed to perfect despite having the same face.

She rolled her eyes. “Come on.”

“At least let me give you my comms signal," he said, "You don’t even have to give me yours, just, if _you_ ever need to call _me_ …”

She stared at him for a few moments.

It was probably a bad idea. Almost definitely.

“Fine,” she relented, dragging her current burner comms out of her pocket, brushing her knife on the way to it. She’d have to remember to transfer the signal once she replaced it.

She wanted to add a cocky _or not_ to that, but she wasn’t kidding herself. She knew she would.

Cecil squealed in excitement and pulled out a much fancier, more permanent-seeming model. He transferred his contact information over to her with a _be-beep_ and took care to put it away before it could pick up hers.

“I’m gonna leave before your friends get back,” she said unceremoniously, finally turning away from him towards the door.

The door slid open and Cecil didn’t say anything. She was halfway out into the hallway before he did.

“I love you,” he said, right as she thought he was really gonna let her leave without a word.

She paused.

“I still hate your guts,” she said.

She glanced back just enough to see his glowing smile before the door slid shut behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> The fic is titled for [Someone To Talk About by Phantoms ft. Grace Mitchell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Kxn6LhjgE), a very good song that I happened to be listening to a lot when I first conceptualized this fic  
> Cecil's new beau and and his sister are definitely supposed to be some juniverse-au-version Edward and Lydia from The Adventure Zone, which you probably picked up on if you've also listened to that podcast (I'm not sure what the overlap's like there).  
> Getting Into It for a sec I think normally Cecil would be the one pushing Edward up against a wall, but Cecil being up against the wall was what I needed for the staging of the scene, so I guess they were mixing it up for the night  
> Also: The back half of Cecil and the Wonderland Twins' room number (J-512) is A1Z26 for E L (Edward and Lydia)


End file.
